Tahrir Square, One Year Later

In late December, there was violence again on Tahrir Square; the Army and the black-clad security police battled demonstrators—with tear gas, Molotov cocktails, bricks, and gunshots—leaving more than a dozen dead. A month ago, it seemed possible to say, cynically, that nothing had really changed since Mubarak fell. The military regime that Nasser and the Free Officers brought to power in 1952, and which Mubarak had headed for thirty years, remained in charge of Egypt, with the country under the de facto authority of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces.

In the year that has passed since the first gatherings in Tahrir Square, on January 25, 2011, Egypt has been riven by paroxysms of protest and violence, crackdowns and martyrdoms. The screaming headlines, the noise of chanting, the gag of the tear gas—the yelling, jostled, bloody foreground—has meant that it has been very difficult to manage any perspective. But over the past three or four weeks the mood has calmed, as people have absorbed the results of a parliamentary election and readied themselves for a new era in which political debate may take place in a legitimate, elected forum, rather than on the streets.

A couple of days ago, I went to the premiere of a documentary, “Reporting the Revolution,” which follows several video journalists from Al Masry Al Youm, Egypt’s largest independent newspaper, who had covered the eighteen days of revolution that lead to Mubarak’s ouster. The movie began an hour late: the sound did not work, the screen went blank, the film was rewound, and then the sound jumped in volume and was suddenly deafening. It seemed an apt metaphor for the confusion of the push-and-pull between the Army and the protesters on the Square over the past months. But then we were drawn back to a year ago, watching Mubarak address his nation, appealing in stentorian tones to his “sons and daughters” of Egypt. The audience happily jeered the face of the past and I thought, No—a lot has changed. The assumptions of dictatorship have changed, passivity and stasis have been overturned. The powers that be have had to respond to the people.

This week, as the clock ticks towards the anniversary of January 25th, the SCAF has made a big attempt to mark the day as celebration, not as confrontation. They have announced that they will free two thousand detainees imprisoned by military tribunals; that families of the martyrs and those in the Army deployed during the revolution will receive medals; and that government jobs will be provided for those injured during the revolution. Most importantly, they decided to convene the first session of the new parliament two days before the anniversary.

Of course, this is Egypt, and so nothing is simple. The politics and procedure remain confusing and inchoate; rules and timetables are announced, denounced, amended, and then abandoned. Several big issues remain unresolved: What will the Muslim Brotherhood do with its forty-seven per cent chunk of parliamentary platform? The group has pulled back its demands for a parliamentary democracy in favor (this week) of a mixed parliamentary-Presidential system; in the meantime, they have agreed to continue to support a SCAF-appointed government. How is the new constitution going to be written and ratified before the Presidential elections, now scheduled for June?

An accommodation between the Brotherhood and SCAF, the two largest power blocs in the country, seems to have been made. And yet their negotiations—over things like civilian oversight of military budgets and operations, protection for the military against prosecution for violence against demonstrators, and the right of a civilian executive or a military council to promulgate war—have been secret, and it’s not clear how these issues will be managed (or fudged) in the constitution.

“You know this is a time when you can only have remarks and observations,” Hisham Kassem, a human-rights worker and sometime independent newspaper editor, told me. “It’s very difficult to have analysis,” A chanting group of demonstrators went past outside the window. Kassem lives next to the Cabinet office, now cordoned off from the main street by a barbed-wire fence and a concrete-block wall after the clashes in December.

I told Kassem that I was optimistic again. The mess and the melee, after all, can be seen as a necessary part of the process of transition. Over the past year, Egyptians have learned to debate and to agitate. Away from Tahrir and its moods—which veer from popcorn-scented family Fridays to gangs of surly slum kids wielding sticks and itching for a fight—they have been holding strikes and protests and sit-ins, pushing for reform and rights in many different places. Police have demanded Interior Ministry reforms and better pay so that they can be less corrupt, state journalists have pushed against censorious editors, professional syndicates have held elections throwing off coöpted leaders, universities have changed administrative heads, Christians march in defense of churches, women for dignity. “It’s like a cyclone on mute” said Kassem. Just perhaps, this new and engaged citizenry will be able to pressure lawmakers (the parliament) and law-enforcers (the Army) into better governance.

On Monday the parliament opened. Five hundred and eight M.P.s, most of them new, most of them wearing smart suits and ties, a couple in the red tarbush worn by Islamic scholars, a couple in flowing Bedu headdresses, a few liberal M.P.s wearing yellow satin sashes with the logo for the pressure group: No To Military Tribunals.

Each M.P. was sworn in, and the lawyer chairing the session became exasperated as several tried to tack on political points to their oaths. To “I swear by God to faithfully protect the peacefulness of the nation to look after the interests of the people and respect the law and the constitution,” there was added either “according to God’s sharia” (by Islamists) or “and the goals of the revolution” (by liberals).

“There is a script we must stick to!” the lawyer said angrily, citing procedural clauses from the rule book. “But it is a new era!” several M.P.s forcefully shouted back.

“I swear to uphold the constitution that I will write!” one said.

The relationships between Tahrir Square and the parliament and Army and President are yet to be worked out. Just maybe, the aspirations of the revolution can muddle through. But as a great shouting match erupted in parliament over the procedure for electing a new speaker, I noted that the flag on the top of a tall stretch of scaffolding, erected to celebrate the head of SCAF Tantawi’s birthday in October, and purporting to be the word’s highest flagpole, had apparently blown off.